Marine Corps apologizes for offensive MLK tweet

The United States Marine Corps was forced to apologize over the weekend after social media accounts administered by the armed forces branch published an off-color remark about slain civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Ahead of the federal holiday held each January in honor of Dr.
King, the Marine Corps Special Operation Command sent a message
early Friday over both Twitter and Facebook in which a gunman in
full military garb is seen aiming his assault weapon out of an
open window.

Dr. King was assassinated by a sniper on April 4, 1968, and his
death sparked a series of violent riots across the US amid
heightened race relations in major cities around America. James
Earl Ray was ultimately convicted of murdering Dr. King, and
authorities say he shot the civil rights leader through the
bathroom window of a boarding house, not unlike the one in the
image shared by the Marine Corps. over the internet.

As expected, the MARSOC tweet and Facebook post quickly caused
uproar across all realms of social media and the armed forces
deleted the offensive posts within minutes.

By Friday afternoon, the agency’s Twitter account was directing
followers to an apology of sorts.

“Marine leaders will frequently take the opportunity to
remind their personnel to make wise decisions and look out for
each other especially before a long holiday weekend,” the
memo began. “The intent of our recent post was to remind
personnel to partner up when going out over the weekend and to
look out for each other using military jargon.”

“When we were alerted to the potential that this military
post could be viewed as insensitive or offensive when combined
with historical facts concerning Martin Luther King Jr., we
immediately took it down and apologize for any untended
disrespect of misperceptions,” the apology continued.

Several hours later, the MARSOC account tweeted a new image —
sans assassination imagery — with the caption, “No matter
what your plans, have a safe weekend! Watch out for one
another.”

Neither of the MARSOC accounts are verified by Twitter or
Facebook, but are touted as the Marine Corps’ branches official
social media pages. As of Monday, the biography for the MARSOC
Twitter page warns, “The appearance of links or follows does
not constitute endorsement.”